174: 7 Ways To Practice 1% Infinity with Bjork Ostrom

Welcome to episode 174 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks about the ways that you can practice 1% infinity with your blog or business.

Last week on the podcast, Bjork chatted with Sven Raphael Schneider from Gentleman’s Gazette about starting and growing his business by fulfilling a need. To go back and listen to that episode, click here.

7 Ways To Practice 1% Infinity

If you’ve been around Food Blogger Pro for a while, chances are that you’ve heard of 1% infinity.

It means making a little bit of progress, every single day, forever, and it’s our philosophy here at FBP HQ.

But how do you actually practice 1% infinity in your own life? That’s the question Bjork is answering in today’s episode.

And we’d love to know: what’s the #1 way you practice 1% infinity in your business? Let us know in the comments!

In this episode, Bjork shares:

Why free events and webinars are valuable

What proactive content consumption is

How to block out time for microlearning

An easy way to fill your day with knowledge

Why it’s important to connect with both similar and diverse groups of people

Transcript:

Bjork Ostrom: Hello, hello, hello. Bjork here. I am recording from Saint Paul, Minnesota, and this is my first time in a while back behind the mic. I took some time off to be with our daughter Solvi. She was born September 13th, and it’s just been an awesome, awesome time here to spend with her. Thank you to those of you that have dropped a note, an email, a message, congratulating us on that, both Lindsay and I. So, so, so deeply appreciate just the kindness of the people that we get to interact with on a daily basis. We just think that people that listen to this podcast, people that follow along with the blog, and people that we get to digitally rub shoulders with are really just such nice people and we feel so thankful for that. So thank you even if it’s just a thought, positive though that you’re sending our way as we welcome our daughter Solvi into the world. We so appreciate that.

Bjork Ostrom: And also so excited to get back into things. The work that we do is incredible work on so many different levels. We just feel so grateful to be able to do this. And my hope with all of the things that we do here on Food Blogger Pro is that it offers you inspiration and a chance to continue growing and learning and to hopefully in some way, shape, or form, live out or fulfill a dream that you might have, and we want to be a small piece of that puzzle. Today’s podcast is actually going to tie into that a little bit. We’re going to be talking about some of the ways that we have in the past and hopefully you can take some notes on this and maybe apply this to yourself, but some ways that we have figured out that we can continue growing and stretching ourselves and continually learning.

Bjork Ostrom: This podcast can be a piece of that, and actually we’re going to talk about that, it’s going to be one of the things that we’re going to share, is the power of podcast. But the hope for this specific episode is to give you some ideas for ways that you can continually build and grow and all around this concept that we talk about a lot in the podcast called 1% infinity.

Bjork Ostrom: 1% infinity is all about finding ways to continually improve every single day over a long period of time. The idea with that is, hey, if you can show up, if you can find one way every day to improve just a little bit, you don’t have to get twice as good or three times the abilities that you had the day before. It’s just 1%. If you were at 10% the day before, how do you get to 11%? If you ran a mile the day before, how do you run a mile and then five seconds beyond that?

Bjork Ostrom: It’s not about these massive leaps. It’s about finding ways to make small improvements and along the way enjoying the process, showing up every day and saying, “Hey, this is a gift to be able to be doing this work. This is a gift to be able to find ways to get a little bit better. And because of that, I want to honor that gift and do what I can to continually improve and hopefully reach a goal along the way, but while I’m doing that, enjoy the process.” That’s all about what 1% infinity is all about.

Bjork Ostrom: Today I’m going to talk about seven different ways that for me personally I’ve applied that in my life and have tried to find avenues to get a little bit better every single day. I’m going to share these seven different ways. It’ll be a little bit of a different podcast because it’s what we call a solo podcast where it’s just me talking, we don’t have a guest on. So it’ll be a little bit shorter than most of the podcasts, but that’s all right. We’re not going to try and make it longer than it needs to be. We’re just going to deliver as much content as we can in the amount of time and we won’t stretch it beyond anything that it needs to be.

Bjork Ostrom: Let’s go ahead and jump in, all right? Let’s talk about these seven different ways that I like to find in the day to improve every single day. I’m not doing all of these every single day, but in any given day there’s a really good probability that I’ll be doing one of these. There might be something in here where you say, “Hey, this is something that I can start to do, that I can apply so I can start to or continue to improve a little bit every single day.” The first one is actually webinars and free online events.

Bjork Ostrom: This is different than courses. This is different than something that you’d sign up for and be a part of. These are webinars or free events that people are putting on and they’re talking about an area of expertise. A lot of times what these will be is it’ll be around a product or a service or an offering, but they’ll do something free that isn’t connected to that.

Bjork Ostrom: But the best webinars and the best free events are also really, really valuable. These are people that are really skilled in a certain area of expertise. I do a lot of these. There’s actually just one that came in today, an invite for an event that’s coming up where it talks about churn. For those that aren’t familiar, churn is the amount of people, essentially it’s the amount of people if you have a recurring offering that cancel every month or every year, and so you have this churn rate. So if you have 100 people and five people cancel, you have a 5% churn. One of the things with online business is figuring out how do you reduce that churn rate if you have a recurring product.

Bjork Ostrom: We’re going to learn about that. There’s this event that’s coming up. It’s a free webinar. They’ll talk about their product, but they’ll also share a lot of advice and insight about how you can really be intentional about reducing churn with your business.

Bjork Ostrom: We actually have for Food Blogger Pro an event coming up and we’re super excited about it because this is one of the subjects that people are most interested in, and that is video. We’re going to be talking with our video expert Emily here on the Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro team. We’re going to be talking about some things that people are so interested in, at least from what we hear. The first session we’re doing is gear. So we’re talking about all of the gear that we use for Pinch of Yum. Emily does all of the videos on her own, so she doesn’t have a shoot assistant, there’s not a stylist. She’s doing all this on her own. So it’d be very similar to a lot of people that listen to this podcast if you’re interested in or you are currently shooting video, and we’re just going to be talking about the gear that she uses.

Bjork Ostrom: She’s also going to be sharing in the second session 10 tips that she uses to let’s say optimize storage. We’re going to be sharing how we store all our files for Pinch of Yum video shoots. Now some of you might say, like, “File storage, that sounds super boring,” but anybody that has shot video before or photography for that matter, you know that storage is such an important piece of it.

Bjork Ostrom: The first session is all about gear. The second session is all about 10 tips to shoot better video. Then the last session is a Q&A session with Emily. We’re all kind of framing that within this idea of like, hey, looking into the New Year 2019 is not too far away, just two months from now we’ll be in 2019. How can you be thinking ahead to the new year and shooting video in a way that is relevant to right now? So what are the things that you can be thinking about, the processes that you can be doing, the gear that you can be using to stay up-to-date and continually improve to apply that 1% infinity to video?

Bjork Ostrom: If you’re interested in doing that, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com/2019. Similar to these webinars that I attend, this is a free webinar. It’s open to anybody. You can listen to the podcast. If you are a Food Blogger Pro member, you can sign up and watch it and attend. We’re doing this open to anybody that is interested in learning about these things that we’re going to talk about.

Bjork Ostrom: We will talk about which I’m super excited about an enrollment period for Food Blogger Pro which is coming up. That’ll be a part of it, as well as, this is a little sneak peek, we’re going to be doing something called Edit Academy which we’ve done in the past. But this is a time for us to for those of you that are interested in learning how to edit, we’re going to go above and beyond after the free course, if somebody decides to sign up for Food Blogger Pro, we’re going to be talking about the editing process. That’s something that we hear people talk about all the time. How do I edit videos it’s one of the most difficult things, is learning that software and jumping in, actually going through the editing process.

Bjork Ostrom: Number one, free webinars and online events. We have one coming up if you want to test out this number one piece of advice for continually improving, and you can go to foodbloggerpro.com/2019, 2019 as we think about video in the new year, and check that out. Then you will check your box of continual improvement in this specific area.

Bjork Ostrom: Number two is finding ways to replace even if it’s just in little snippets of time the mindless content consumption with more proactive content consumption. I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but one of my favorite ways to do that is to when somebody sends me an article or when I’m looking at something online and I say, “Hey, this is something that I want to learn about,” I’m interested in it, or somebody sends me something in the middle of the day, I say, “Hey, that’s actually pretty interesting,” but maybe I don’t have time to read it, what I’ll do is I’ll save that and essentially I have a little social media feed of things that are interesting to me that I can read.

Bjork Ostrom: The app that I use for that is called Pocket. You can have an app on your phone as well as a Chrome extension, and you can also then categorize each one of those articles. What that allows you to do is let’s say that you’re waiting in line somewhere and you’re checking out at Target, it’s super busy, it’s a Sunday afternoon, and usually what you do is you’d pull up your phone and you’d maybe flip through Instagram for a little bit. That’s not bad. But if you’re thinking of, “Hey, what are ways that I can continually improve in really small ways,” but maybe you don’t have a ton of time in the day so you have to do some habit switching, you have to think about how can I gain back some proactive time and trade the time that isn’t as proactive. This could be one of those ways.

Bjork Ostrom: In line you’re waiting to check out. You have five minutes. Instead of doing a quick scroll through Instagram, you can replace that with scrolling through the different articles that you have on Pocket, and you can see, okay, maybe this is a shorter article and it talks about something that you’ve wanted to learn, or maybe it’s an industry trend and you want to follow along with that. So you pull up Pocket and you can kind of read through that real quick. And then if you want to save it, you can save that, come back to it later, or you can archive it. You kind of have this to-do list of articles that you’re reading through.

Bjork Ostrom: It’s a small shift, but what happens then is you have this really intentional content consumption where as opposed to social media it’s a little bit like somebody is bringing something to you that you haven’t necessarily picked. But if you have these articles, these pieces of information that you really are intentional about, you say, “Okay, I know that I’m going to go into this app,” or, “I know that I’m going to pull this up online and these are all going to be things that are right in the wheelhouse of what I want to be learning, what I want to be filling my brain space with and the things that I want to be thinking about.” That’s number two, thinking about ways to do a little bit of a habit switch and replace out some of the social media or kind of mindless scrolling with a little bit more intentional content consumption.

Bjork Ostrom: The app that I use and the service that I love to use for that is Pocket. I actually pay for the premium version of that because I use it enough where I say, “Hey, this is something that I want to number one, make sure the company is still around, but number two, have all of the features to make it as easy as possible and enjoyable as possible to use that.” If that is something that you feel like you could win back some time, be sure to check that out.

Bjork Ostrom: Another quick little tip for any phone, but this is a recent change for Apple phones, was with the latest operating system you can now go in and see where you are spending most of your time, and that’s in the Settings area of your phone. You can pull up your phone, you can click on Settings, and then there’s a little area called Screen Time. You can go and look. Maybe you think that you’re not spending much time scrolling through social media randomly or for me the one that I always go to is the news app and I just kind of randomly scroll through the news app. Maybe you don’t think that you’re doing that, but you can set some time limits and see like, hey, maybe I’m spending more than 15, 30 minutes a day scrolling through these, get a better idea, and allow that to inform you as you kind of think about how you want to habit switch and replace that.

Bjork Ostrom: Number three, micro learning. This kind of ties into number two, but it has more to do with intentional course consumption. What I mean by that is a lot of us think about courses that we want go to, things …

Bjork Ostrom: What I mean by that is a lot of us think about courses that we want to go to, things that we want to learn, and classes that we want to experience, but we say, “Ah, I just don’t have enough time for that.” And for most of us, that’s at the core probably pretty true, but my guess is that you wouldn’t have let’s say a two to three hour block of time, but I think for most of us, we could probably find 15 minutes a day to block that out.

Bjork Ostrom: Now, this is different than number two because number three, this micro-learning, has to do with an intentional block of time that you’re setting every day. And the easiest part would be to set this as part of your morning routine. So, let’s say that you have a morning routine. Every day you get up, you make coffee, you read the newspaper, and then you get ready for work. Micro-learning would fit sometime, it doesn’t have to be in the morning, but I think it’s best, sometime within that morning routine. So maybe the shift that you make is you get up 15 minutes earlier, you make your coffee, and you sit down and you say, “Okay, I’m going to watch two videos in a certain subject that I want to learn.”

Bjork Ostrom: Now, this isn’t super exciting, but the one for me as of late has been taxes. I want to have a better understanding of how taxes work. In the US, there’s been some really significant tax changes in the 2018 year here, and so I want to get better at learning that. So, I’m kind of building up my knowledge of taxes but I’m not doing it where I’m sitting down in a two, three hour stretch. I have this micro-learning time where I say, “Hey, I’m going to watch through this content,” and sometimes it’s reading as well, but I’m going to block that out. I’m going to block that time out and say, “I know that I want to be intentional with this,” and do it at a time when I have control of the day a little bit later on, say 5:00, 6:00, 7:00 at night, I kind of lose control of the day. I don’t have as much say over what I’m doing and there might be something that comes up that I need to see to, but usually in the morning, there’s a little bit more control over the day and it allows you to do this micro-learning.

Bjork Ostrom: So, think about what that might be. If you’re a Food Blogger Pro member, it might be going through from the start the courses and watching those strategically and saying, “Okay, I want to make sure I comb through all of these so I have really specific industry knowledge.” Maybe you want to get better at something like taxes or you want to understand Photoshop a little bit more. You can learn an amazing amount with just 15 minutes a day by going through a Photoshop course and seeing the expert who uses Photoshop every day use that and really come to understand it, so that’s number three is micro-learning and finding time to do that every day.

Bjork Ostrom: Number four, you get a bonus point for this. You get a gold star. Podcasts. This is about filling those gaps in your day. Maybe it’s when you’re driving or working out, maybe it’s when you’re doing the dishes. Maybe you’re out doing lawn work. You’re filling that with something that is going to be positive and educational content, and a great way to do that is podcasts. Now, audiobooks are also a part of that, but for me I’ve really, really dug into podcasts over the past two, three years. A lot of the progress that I’ve seen in my own knowledge has come from really being intentional about filling my time that otherwise would be just kind of open time with podcasts.

Bjork Ostrom: A few of my favorites for people that are interested in business or technology or startups, I just picked four off the top of my head. If somebody were to say, “Hey, tell me about a podcast where I can learn about startups and industry knowledge and things like that.”

Bjork Ostrom: So, my favorites, these are more startups, so not necessarily just blogging, but This Week in Startups. So, that’s a guy named Jason Calacanis. He’s an investor and entrepreneur. He talks a lot about kind of business strategy but it’s also an entertaining podcast, so that would be a great one to check out.

Bjork Ostrom: Startups for the Rest of Us, so this is actually a podcast by two individuals, Rob and Mike. So, Rob is a now Twin Cities resident. He and his wife and family moved here, and they had a company that was called Drip, which is an email software that was acquired by Lead Pages. Lead Pages is a Minnesota company. They moved here, but they have this podcast.

Bjork Ostrom: Rob has this podcast that he’s been doing for a long time, and the idea is it’s a little bit of a contrast to that first one, This Week in Startups, because he talks about, “Hey, startups for the rest of us.” What if we don’t have a bunch of money that a company is investing in us? What if we don’t have somebody who’s coming in and giving us a million dollars for a percentage of our company and then we use that to build the company? What if we’re doing bootstrapping like a lot of the people that listen to this podcast are doing where you are using your own money, you’re using sweat equity, you’re putting in time and energy? Maybe there’s a little bit longer tail to how long it takes to get up and running with your site and to become profitable, but it’s possible and it’s exciting and there’s definitely a huge group of people that are doing it, but sometimes it doesn’t get the attention that some of the other startups would.

Bjork Ostrom: So, Startups for the Rest of Us kind of talks about people that are in that boat. It’s a great podcast for giving perspectives on what it’s like to build a business and to do that intentionally and methodically and to do that in a really smart way. That’s one of my favorites, as well.

Bjork Ostrom: This is just one that was off the top of my head, and it’s a little bit of a nerdy podcast, but Mac Break Weekly, which is all about tech. That’s kind of the one that I’ll listen to on the weekends when I want a little bit of a brain break.

Bjork Ostrom: Then, the last one for people that are interested in businesses is called Mixergy. Mixergy is a podcast that is interviews with entrepreneurs, and if you want to get some perspective from other people what it’s like, the things that are hard, the things that are great, the lessons that they’ve learned, things people would do differently, Mixergy is a great place for that because you hear from other business owners and entrepreneurs and hear their stories, both personally, which is often a really big part of it, but also strategically, what are the things that they would do differently.

Bjork Ostrom: So, number four, podcasts, and specifically, as we think about 1% infinity, getting a little bit better every day, finding those pockets of time in your day where maybe you’d be listening to the radio or you would be listening to music, both of those things not bad things, but if you’re thinking about, “How do I get better every day? How do I make small improvements?” You need to be really strategic in the selection of the content that you’re listening to, and again, much like social media, radio, or talk radio or music, that’s going to be not you deciding what it is. I mean, you can kind of decide the general topic or the general station that you’re listening to, but it’s not going to be specific to the thing that you really want to learn. So, podcasts are a great way to be intentional about continually learning and it’s one of my favorite things over the past, it’s actually really been 10 years that have been super helpful in gaining knowledge in a specific area.

Bjork Ostrom: Number five, similar circles and diverse circles. Now, some people would call this concept, this general concept masterminds, but the idea behind it is like, hey, a circle of people that you know, like, and trust that you get together with in some way on a consistent basis.

Bjork Ostrom: What I mean by similar and diverse is this. I have found it extremely beneficial to be in a group of people that are in a very similar niche or industry, and Food Blogger Pro’s an example of this, right? So we talk about food and recipe sites and building those sites in a really specific niche. Now, a lot of people that listen to this podcast aren’t necessarily in that niche, but Food Blogger Pro, the membership part of what we do, so the community element, that’s a very similar group of people. Now, the site that people have, the thing that they focus on, the voice that they have, the community that they are serving, those are all going to be different, but for everybody in that group, they’re going to be pretty similar in the conversations they have, in the way that they’re able to help people, the way that they’re able to speak specifically to problems and issues and things like that.

Bjork Ostrom: So, that’s an example of a similar circle. That’s really important because those people are going to really, really understand the type of problems that you’re going to have and they’re going to be able to speak into those problems in a way that you will immediately be able to say, “Okay yeah, I understand that, and now I can go ahead and make changes and improvements based on what you said.” So, finding similar circles is a really great way to continually improve.

Bjork Ostrom: And then you have this diverse circle. What is a diverse circle? Well, this is a group of people who are in kind of a similar thing, right? It’s still a circle. You’re still all together, but the type of work that they do and the type of business that they’re in is very different. I found it extremely beneficial to have conversations and be a part of circles where people have no idea what I do or if they do, they kind of know in general terms, and I don’t really know much about their industry because they’re going to come from their similar circles and talk to me about what the norms are.

Bjork Ostrom: The most important thing for me in those conversations is to hear somebody else’s perspective on a similar problem that I might have, whatever that might be. Maybe it’s working with great contractors. So, how do you find somebody that maybe isn’t part of your team, but you want them to feel like they’re a part of your team? What does that look like? Well, some people in my similar circle might have ideas about what that looks like, but if I get into my diverse circle, that’s going to look very different. They’re going to have different insights and advice around that.

Bjork Ostrom: Some of you are going to be thinking this because I know it’s a really common question. Well, that’s great, and it’s a lot harder to do this than listen to a podcast or attend an online event. I would say 100% it’s true, but I would also say that if you, the individual, as opposed to you, the person looking to be a part of a group, so you personally, how do you move forward and create this group instead of how do you go and join another group?

Bjork Ostrom: I think that’s one of the hardest things is people think, “How do I break into these groups so I can be a part of it?” But so often I’ve seen the most success with people that want to start this, being that they are the ones that create it. So, reach out to people that you already know, that you’re connected with in some way and say, “Hey, I’m thinking of creating a group of kind of people that are doing a similar thing and would love for you to be a part of that,” and then it’s on you to schedule the times to get together, to follow up with people. It’s a little bit of additional work, but the benefit far outweighs the work that it creates.

Bjork Ostrom: The same thing would be true for that diverse circle. Maybe you have somebody in your family or a friend of a friend that you know has a business. Reach out to them and say, “Hey, I would love to get together with you.” This just happened to me last week. I got together with somebody for lunch, and it was an extremely beneficial conversation for both of us and it was also a lot of fun to meet a new person. That’s another great side benefit or main benefit of things like that is you’re just able to connect with people.

Bjork Ostrom: But with all of it, I would encourage you to first think about how are you the person that takes on the burden of scheduling and connecting, following up if that needs to happen, and maybe it’s reserving a place somewhere, it’s additional work, but I think what you’ll find is that it’s beneficial to do and to think about both similar circles and diverse circles. I think if you’re intentional about doing that, what you’ll find is that it’ll be an incredible way to continually improve as you hear stories and other people talk about what it is they’re doing and the successes or failures that they have, so that’s number five for continual ways to improve 1% infinity, similar circles and diverse circles.

Bjork Ostrom: Number six. It ties into number five, but it’s kind of number five plus. It’s number five supersized, and that is conferences or in person events. It’s amazing to me how many conversations that I have had with people on the podcast or with people if we’re connecting and they’re talking about pivotal events in their story, where they say, “I went to a conference,” or, “I did this in person event and that was the moment that I really realized XYZ,” like, “I could do this,” or, “The best possible way forward,” or, “I met somebody and that was really influential in my story.”

Bjork Ostrom: There’s something about blocking out a day or two days or three days, not doing the typical work that you would do, kind of freeing your brain space, and just hanging out with people that are doing similar things. I don’t know what it is, and maybe a psychologist could help me understand it, or maybe it’s just as simple as learning from other people and having conversations about the problems that you’re having.

Bjork Ostrom: … people, and having conversations about the problems that you’re having, and trying to figure out creative ways to do what you’re doing better. But almost universally from the conversations that I have with people that are continually improving, one thing they always come back to is conferences or in person events, and those being really significant important things. And I know for me as I think back to our story, especially early on, this is just something that we didn’t do a lot of. I wasn’t super involved with conferences, I wasn’t super intentional to go and meet with people. I would say as somebody who is just as happy to be at home reading a book with a cup of coffee as I am out with a group of friends, my initial gut, my initial leaning when I heard go to a conferences, I’m like, “Ah. That sounds super intimidating,” and not like something that I would want to do."

Bjork Ostrom: But I think if you take the time to do it, if you show up, if you take the time to prepare beforehand, that’s another really big thing, reach out, see if there’s people that you know that are coming, make those connections. Or work with people that are in your circle to say, “Hey. I’m interested in going to this event. Do you want to go together?” That makes it a lot easier sometimes when you know you have somebody that will be going with you that you can attend together, makes it easier to connect with people when there’s two people together working to connect and potentially to do introductions. But I think what you’ll find is that it’ll be a really pivotal important piece of your story of continual improvement. And for whatever reason, when we get together as a group of people, and we talk about something similar, and we share our stories, there is power and significance in that. So think about those conferences and in person events that you would like to attend.

Bjork Ostrom: And it could be something really specific to what you’re doing. So maybe you have a fashion blog and there’s a fashion conference, or a food blog and there’s a food conference that you want to go to. But it also could be a general conference. Maybe there’s a conference or an in person event on a business building, right? That’s a very broad topic, but I think what you’ll find is there will still be things that you can apply, and it kind of goes back to that similar circles and diverse circles. So, that’s number six. Continual improvement, ways that you can continually apply that idea of 1% Infinity, conferences, and in person events.

Bjork Ostrom: And number seven. Last but not least number seven. This could be one of the most important things, and it is actually nothing. And here’s what I mean by that. I think it’s really important to have times in your day, in your week, in your month, whatever it would be, but as much as possible on a consistent basis to have times where you don’t have anything coming in, where you aren’t trying to learn new things, when you aren’t trying to cram as much stuff as possible into your day so you can be continually learning. Because in order to process through that stuff that you were learning on a continual basis, or the things that are being … the input in your day, in order to continually process that and apply it, there have to be these blocks of time where your brain can kind of sort through that. And if we have stuff coming in all the time, you’re not going to be able to do the important work that is processing of ideas, and mentally applying those in whatever way that looks like.

Bjork Ostrom: For me the best time to do this is when I go for a walk. So I know that I’m going to be moving, I know that I’m not going to be sitting at my desk distracted, but I’m also going to be actively thinking about just by the way our brains work, I’m going to be actively thinking about the things that I have been putting in, the input that I’ve had that day, or that week, or whatever it would be. And these structure free times are going to be really critical times for your continual improvement, because these are going to be the times where you’re able to take that stuff that’s coming in, and you’re actually going to be able to sort through it a little bit, and find ways that you can apply it to what you’re doing. So what does that look like? It could be walks, it could be driving, it could be when you’re working out.

Bjork Ostrom: It’s probably similar blocks of time to what it would look like when you’re filling in for the podcasts. So we talked in podcasts about, hey. Here are the times where you can think about replacing music with intentional learning.“ Or when you normally would be going for a walk, you can listen to a podcast at that time. It’s going to be very similar times, but the difference with this obviously is that you say, ”Okay. Maybe when I go for a walk I’m always going to listen to a podcast, but for my drive home from work, that’s going to be the time where it’s just content free. I don’t have anything coming in. I’m just going to allow my brain to think through stuff, and to sort out that really important input that I’ve had, and think about ways that I can actually apply that."

Bjork Ostrom: I think that’s a really crucial piece, and it might not seem like optimizing every single minute to get to a point of 100% capacity for improvement. But my case for this, my argument would be that this is just as important as actually getting that continual learning and getting that education content coming in, because it also has to be sorted out, and you have to figure out in your mind, “Hey. What does that look like to actually apply it?” So be intentional about finding those content free times. So those are the seven. That would be my 1% Infinity inspirational podcast for you today. A quick review of what those are.

Bjork Ostrom: Number one, webinars and free online events. Just a quick reminder about that event that we have coming up for Food Blogger Pro. Alexa will talk more about it here. She kind of wraps up the podcast episode at the end. But if you are interested in checking that out, go to foodbloggerpro.com/2019, and that will redirect you to the page where you can sign up for it. Just again, a real quick overview of what that is. It’s a one day live event. If you miss it, the course content will be available for 24 hours, and then it will be available to any Food Blogger Pro members after that. So you don’t have to attend if you are an active Food Blogger member. But again, this is free. It’s open to anyone. And we’re going to be talking about The Gear We Use for Pinch of Yum Recipes Videos. It’s going to be the first session. The second one is going to be Ten Tips for Leveling-Up Your Recipes Videos in 2019. And we’re going to be ending with the Q&A with Emily. And again, that is November 6th. It’s going to be a great session, a great few sessions and we’re super excited about it. Foodbloggerpro.com/2019. And we’d be excited to have all of you there.

Bjork Ostrom: Number two, replacing or doing that habit switching, thinking about reading stories or articles in an area of interest. The app that I use, that I like is called Pocket.

Bjork Ostrom: Number three, micro learning, blocking out that time in the morning. Maybe it’s 15 minutes to say, “Hey. 15 minutes a day I’m going to learn about Photoshop.” Or, “15 minutes a day I’m going to learn about Lightroom.” And not feeling like you need to go through the whole course, but just entering into a small blip of time where you are intentionally learning about something that you want to know little bit better.

Bjork Ostrom: Number four, podcasts. I talked about podcasts that are some of my favorites. And you know about podcasts, so we don’t need to spend too much time on that, because you’re listening to this, so you get a gold star.

Bjork Ostrom: Number five, similar circles and diverse circles, thinking about the people that you’re spending time with and making sure that you have people that are in a very similar circle that can speak into what you’re doing. But then don’t get caught in that circle only. Make sure you also have that diverse circle, people that are doing different things, and in different industries, and operating in different ways. So similar and diverse circles.

Bjork Ostrom: Number six, conferences and in person events. If you’ve never done one, maybe look up some conferences or ask your friends, ones that they’ve been to that they really enjoy. And see if somebody would willing to go with you, if you’re a little bit intimated by going by yourself. Say, “Hey. Would anybody else be interested? I’m going to this one at this time.” And maybe you can even share a room, split expenses, right? If you’re willing to do that and find creative ways to get to these in person events, because those can be so significant.

Bjork Ostrom: And then number seven, allowing yourself to have times where they’re content free, where you’re not doing anything except thinking and processing. And I’ll tell you what, your brain gets you listening to this podcast, I just need you to affirm you. Your brain is such an incredible thing. And you know that because you’re smart, and you’re listening to podcasts, and you’re educating yourself. But I just want to remind you of how incredible your mind is, and then allowing it to do those incredible things like sort through your problems, and to think through creative solutions, and to create incredible things, which your mind can do. Sometimes we just got to give it the space and time to do that. We can’t let it always process the things that are coming in. We have to allow some time for it to work and do creative things on its own without having to process stuff that’s coming in. So, that’s number seven.

Alexa Peduzzi: Hey, hey! Alexa here to wrap up this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. I wanted to take a second to chat a bit more about our video in 2019 Summit coming up on Tuesday, November 6th. These events are just the best. They give us a chance to connect with you, those in our similar circle as Bjork was talking about earlier in order to learn and grow together. They are my favorite days of the year, because I just love hanging out with my fellow food bloggers. We’ve had a few of these events in the past, and we’ve actually focused a few of them on Recipe Videos, but Tuesday’s video in 2019 Summit is full of 100% new content. Not only are Recipe Videos a powerful and just great way to get your content seen, they can also be a helpful way to form relationships and bonds with the brands that you love. So if you’re looking for some inspiration to start shooting recipes videos in 2019, or maybe you’ve already shot a few and you want to learn some tricks for leveling up your video game, I really encourage you to attend. It’s 100% free and totally virtual, so there’s really no risk in attending. If you want to attend in your pajamas, no judgment here. We’d love to see you there.

Alexa Peduzzi: And instead of a typical podcast reviewer of the week, I’m going to leave you with this testimonial from Aaron, who attended one of our previous Recipe Video events.

He said, “In June of 2017 I took Food Blogger Pro’s Recipe Video Boot Camp. The course was addictive to follow, and eventually convinced me to create my first recipe video ever. They made it look so easy. Well, now in 2018 the same video is at nearly 10 million views and it literally changed my life. I will always remember how Bjork said that some recipes can become music hits. I wasn’t sure I believed him until now. I’m now a full time blogger and a proud member of Food Blogger Pro, all thanks to you guys. By joining Food Blogger Pro, you’ll get access to the same Recipe Video course I watched that changed my life and my career as a food blogger. And maybe, just maybe you’ll be able to quit your job and become a full time food blogger too.”

Alexa Peduzzi: That’s so amazing, right? Attending this video in 2019 Summit is a great way to make those small improvements, to practice 1% Infinity. You can learn more and register at foodbloggerpro.com/2019, and we would love to see you there. That does it for us this week friends. Thank you so much for tuning in and from all of us here at FBPHQ, make it a great week.

Tips from Bjork and Lindsay

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